How do spacemen organize a party?
They planet!
Something (different) for Thursday
For some reason I’ve been on a kick lately of watching POV videos of roller coasters and log flumes. I enjoy roller coasters (as long as I don’t go upside down, because I’m chicken) and I love log flumes. I just love those things. Log flumes can be pretty lame sometimes, though — as enjoyable as the ride itself is, I like individual rides to be themed so that you can’t really see anything other than the ride you’re on when you’re on it.
Here’s a great example. This one is apparently in Germany. I would dearly love to ride this one!
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Base Touching
I’m cranking through edits for The Wisdomfold Path right now, hoping to finish this weekend.
I’m also starting to kick around ideas for a second series of books in the same universe. I figure I’ve got a galaxy to play with, so there’s no reason I can’t tell other stories there. What’s forming in my head is something along the lines of a “the adventures of a smallish ship and her quirky crew” thing — a mashup of Firefly and James Bond In SPACE!!!. Obviously this is at the very early point in gestation. All I know is the name of the ship captain and the number of people on the crew (five).
Writin’s fun, folks!
(And I do plan to do some more posting here, once the editing’s done! Thanks for hanging in there!)
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A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter
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Bad Joke Friday
A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter
When to say “Meh, that’s as good as I’m gettin’ it”
Writer comrade Briana Morgan has some thoughts on when you should stop editing.
As writers, we can also be our own worst critics. Our standards are different than everyone else’s. Sometimes the prose is not as bad as our minds make it out to be.
Additionally, editing can turn into a vehicle for procrastination. When we’re afraid to start new projects, we waste all our time on polishing pieces that are already excellent. Sometimes we just need to stop. Sometimes we need to give up.
We need to walk away.
So, when do I stop editing? When it’s time to move on to the next thing. I’m not being flip, here. As a writer, I’m rather like President Josiah Bartlet in my approach: I’m always asking, “What’s next?”
On the novels, I find myself doing three rounds of edits. The first comes after I’ve set the original, first-draft manuscript aside for a while (no shorter than three months, but sometimes quite a bit longer…I still haven’t done first markups on GhostCop (not the actual title) yet). This is when I look for awful inconsistencies to tighten up, awful language to replace, useless words to cut. My goal during this round is always to produce a second draft that is at least 10% shorter than the first. This draft then goes to beta readers.
I seem to have done a great job picking my beta readers, because they always give great feedback in a number of areas, and eventually I apply their critiques (maybe) to the book when I generate a second draft. This is when I really try to strengthen things up, by doing more cutting of extraneous crap and highlighting things like villains and their motivations and the like. After this, generally I do one more edit: a proofread, really, wherein I go through the thing after having a few other people proofread it.
And then, now that I’m fully in the self-publishing gig? That’s when I format and publish.
Right now I am in the second phase of edits for The Wisdomfold Path, after which it will be time to give it to proofreaders. But how do I know when I’m done editing? That is the original question, after all.
I am pretty hard-nosed about this: I only go through the book once during this phase, and I just don’t get hung up on making every single sentence sing. Because, quite frankly, not every single sentence can sing. Am I a perfectionist? As much as I can afford to be. But I can’t take years editing a single book, because I’ve got other ones that need evicted from my head, too.
What also helps is that I’ve set built-in deadlines for myself. Sure, I’m self-publishing, which means I don’t have an editor’s deadline to make, but in reality, I do: it’s just that I’m the one setting it. The Wisdomfold Path has to be out the second week of November, because I’ve promised it to people. For me that’s really the only way to make sure I’ll do the work: set a date and hold myself to that date. That’s a major reason why The Adventures of Lighthouse Boy (not the actual title) is currently on the back burner: had I kept working on it, I would almost certainly be staring down the barrel of missing my deadline for Wisdomfold Path, and that’s just not going to happen.
I’m a believer in quotas and hard dates for completion of things, and I am not a fan of partial projects lingering on the To Do list for long periods of time. A coworker of mine, a guy who taught me a lot about facilities maintenance, once scolded me: “You know, sometimes you have to actually put a project to bed.” That’s pretty true. A whole bunch of partial manuscripts on my hard drive does exactly zero good to anybody. I’m in this to get read, and if you want your books to be read, well…sometimes you have to actually put a book to bed.
(By the way, if anyone’s wondering, I’m about a third of the way through this round of edits on The Wisdomfold Path, and then it’ll be in the hands of proofreaders. I’ll do markups then on the first draft of Ghostcop, and then prep a re-release of Stardancer, on more e-formats than just Kindle and likely to include a preview of Wisdomfold Path. Then, focus will shift to final prep for release, followed by a first draft of GhostCop II, followed by first markups of Stardancer III. Onward and upward! Zap! Pow!!)
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Bad Joke Friday
Long one this week!
A man is driving down the road and breaks down near a monastery. He goes to the monastery, knocks on the door, and says, “My car broke down. Do you think I could stay the night?” The monks graciously accept him, feed him dinner, even fix his car. As the man tries to fall asleep, he hears a strange sound. The next morning, he asks the monks what the sound was, but they say, “We can’t tell you. You’re not a monk.” The man is disappointed but thanks them anyway and goes about his merry way.
Some years later, the same man breaks down in front of the same monastery. The monks accept him, feed him, even fix his car. That night, he hears the same strange noise that he had heard years earlier. The next morning, he asks what it was, but the monks reply, “We can’t tell you. You’re not a monk.”
The man says, “All right, all right. I’m dying to know. If the only way I can find out what that sound was is to become a monk, how do I become a monk?”
The monks reply, “You must travel the earth and tell us how many blades of grass there are and the exact number of sand pebbles. When you find these numbers, you will become a monk.”
The man sets about his task. Forty five years later, he returns and knocks on the door of the monastery. He says, “I have travelled the earth and have found what you have asked for. There are 145,236,284,232 blades of grass and 231,281,219,999,129,382 sand pebbles on the earth.”
The monks reply, “Congratulations. You are now a monk. We shall now show you the way to the sound.” The monks lead the man to a wooden door, where the head monk says, “The sound is right behind that door.”
The man reaches for the knob, but the door is locked. He says, “Real funny. May I have the key?” The monks give him the key, and he opens the door. Behind the wooden door is another door made of stone. The man demands the key to the stone door. The monks give him the key, and he opens it, only to find a door made of ruby. He demands another key from the monks, who provide it. Behind that door is another door, this one made of sapphire. So it went until the man had gone through doors of emerald, silver, topaz, and amethyst.
Finally, the monks say, “This is the last key to the last door.” The man is relieved to no end. He unlocks the door, turns the knob, and behind that door he is amazed to find the source of that strange sound.
But I can’t tell you what it is, because you’re not a monk.